CASUARINACEAE. 93 



Order 1. CASUARINALES. 



Shrubs or trees with loosely jointed ang-led branches, the leaves reduced 

 to small, appressed or recurved scales, 4 or more in a whorl at a node, 

 sometimes united into a sheathing base. Flowers unisexual, the staminate 

 in slender terminal spikes, subtended by imbricated bracts, often with an 

 anterior and posterior perianth-part, 1 stamen and a larsre anther with sacs 

 opening lengthwise. Pistillate flowers in dense spikes or cones; perianth 

 wanting; ovary 1-eelled; styles slightly united at the base, the 2 branches 

 slender. Ovules 1 or 2 in a cavity, orthotropous or half-anatropous. Fruit 

 a collection of winged achenes subtended by accrescent bractlets. Seed 

 solitary, with a membranous testa. 



Family 1. CASUARINACEAE Lindl. 

 Beefwood Family. 

 Characters of the order. Only the genus Casuarina with 20 species, 

 mostly Australian. 



Casuarina equisetifolia L., Horsetail Tree, Beefwood, South Sea 

 Ironwood, a slender and graceful rapirlly g^roTrin^ tree, Avith slender branches, 

 attaining a height of 30° or more and freely branching, the sheath-tceth fJ-S in 

 each whorl, its ripe cones about V thick, roughened bv the proiecting, pubes- 

 cent bracteoles, is commonly planted for ornament and interest, in Bermuda, as 

 in South Florida and the West Indies. It is native of Australia. 



Casuarina quadrivalvis Labill., Forest Swamp Oak, also Australian, seen 

 as a young plant at the Agricultural Station in 1914, has stouter deeply 

 grooved branchlets, the teeth about 10; its globose or ovoid cones become 1' in 

 diameter. 



Another species of Casuarina, grown at Bellevue, has more slender branches, 

 and sends up suckers from its roots, its ripe cones less than V in diameter, the 

 projecting bracteoles glabrous. It appears to agree in foliage and cones with 

 the description of C. CunningJiamidna Miq. ; the same species is grown at 

 King's House Gardens on the island of Jamaica. 



Order 2. PIPERALES. 



Dicotyledonous plants, with neither petals nor sepals, the spicate 

 flowers bracteolate. 



Family 1. PIPERACEAE H.B.K. 



Pepper Family. 



Herbs, shrubs or trees, often aromatic. Leaves leather\% or fleshy, 

 usually entire". Flowers perfect or unisexual, in solitary or clustered spikes 

 or rarely in racemes. Perianth none. Stamens 2-6, or rarely 8 or 10, in- 

 serted under the ovarv^ filaments distinct, sometimes adnate to the base of 

 the ovarv' ; anthers attached at the base, the 2 sacs often confluent. Gynoe- 

 cium of 3 or rarely more united carpels. Ovary 1-celled, sessile or nearly 

 so. Stigmas 3 or many. Ovule solitarv^, erect, orthotropous. Fruit inde- 

 hiscent. Seed solitarj^, with a membranous or leathei-y testa. Endosperm 



